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Navigational Deflector
Although the density of the interstellar medium is extremely low, significant hazards to navigation exist, especially for a starship traveling at relativistic or warp velocities. Among these are micrometeoroid particulates, as well as the much rarer (but more hazardous) larger objects such as asteroids. Even the extremely tenuous stray hydrogen atoms of the interstellar medium itself can beadangerous source offriction at sufficient velocities. Hardware The heart of the navigational deflector system is three redundant high powered graviton polarity source generators located on Deck 6. Each of these generators consists of a cluster of six 128 MW graviton polarity sources feeding a pair of 550 millicochrane subspace field distortion amplifiers. The flux energy output of these generators is directed and focused by a series of powerful subspace field coils. The main deflector dish consists of a duranium framework onto which is attached the actual emitter array, constructed of a series of molybdenum-duranium mesh panels that radiate the flux energy output. The dish is steerable under automatic computer control by means of four high-torque electrofluidic servos capable of deflecting the dish up to 7.2° from the ship's Z axis. Phase-interference techniques are used to achieve fine aiming of the deflector beam, using modulation control of the emitter array. Subspace field coils just upstream of the actual deflector emitter dish are used to shape the deflector beam into two primary components. First, a series of five nested parabolic shields extend nearly two kilometers ahead of the ship. These low-power fields are relatively static and are used to deflect the stray hydrogen atoms of the interstellar medium as well as any submicron particulates that may have escaped the deflector beam. The navigational deflector, also controlled by the subspace field coils, is a powerful tractor/deflector that sweeps thousands of kilometers ahead of the ship, pushing aside larger objects that may present a collision hazard. Long Range Sensors Because the main deflector dish radiates significant amounts of both subspace and electromagnetic radiation, it can have detrimental effects on the performance of many sensors. For this reason, the long-range sensor array is located directly behind the main deflector, so that the primary axis of both systems are nearly coincident. This arrangement permits the long-range sensors to "look" directly through the axis of the fields. The long-range sensor array is a key element of the navigational deflector system because it is used to provide detection and tracking of objects in the ship's flight path. The forward sensor array can also be used to provide this information, but doing so results in lesser detection ranges and may use sensor elements better assigned to scientific use. The molybdenum-duranium mesh of the main deflector emitters is designed with areas of 0.52 cm perforation patterns so as to be transparent to the long-range sensor array. Note that certain instruments, notably the subspace field stress and gravimetric distortion sensors, will not yield usable data when deflector output exceeds a certain level (typically 55%, depending on sensor resolution mode and field-of-view.). Operational Considerations At normal impulse speeds (up to 0.25c), navigational deflector output can usually be kept at about 27 MW (with momentary surge reserve of 52 MW). Warp velocities up to Warp 8 require up to 80% of normal output with surge reserve of 675,000 MW. Velocities exceeding Warp Factor 8 require the use of two deflector generators operating in phase sync, and velocities greater than Warp 9.2 require all three deflector generators in order to maintain adequate surge reserve. Navigational deflector operation is somewhat more complex when the Bussard ramscoop is in use because the navigational deflector actually pushes away the interstellar hydrogen that the collector seeks to attract. In such cases, field manipulation is employed to create small "holes" in the navigational deflector shields, permitting the rarefied interstellar hydrogen to be directed into the ramscoop's magnetic fields. Category:Operations Category:Engineering Category:Ship Systems